17 November 2015
Rainy bomb day
Visiting the memorial peace museum in Hiroshima
As predicted, its raining. At times it was raining just enough to justify an umbrella, which I didnt have, but mostly it was raining enough for me to hold my hand out to ensure it was actually raining.
What this meant for me was, no mountain, instead time to hang around the city and have a look at things that got blown up, and things that got rebuilt after being blown up.
This was almost all under recontruction, including the museum, which is under construction until 2018.
The castle is not under reconstruction, its just been finished, apparently for the 3rd time since it was rebuilt in about 1950. They just dont make castles like they used to.
As one might expect, the hordes of tourists were everywhere around the peace park, museum and dome. There were foreign and domestic tourists, lots of school children.
The school kids had clip boards that were ingenious, a strap around your neck, and the bottom of it clips to your school uniform, so you could write on it without holding it with your hands.
The foreign groups were probably here for only the day, so do or die, they were doing everything, to a schedule, before racing off to see whatevers next on their packed itinerary.
I have the luxury of another 3 days here before going to the next place, hopefully it stops raining so I can go to some places out of town and walk around a lot and take pointless photos.
The whole checking out things that got bombed didnt take very long, so I wandered around town for a while to find lunch, then retreated to my hotel, perfect day to do washing, but no, Sunroute plaza has no washing machines.
The museum, is only half open, and the other half will close soon when the closed half reopens. It is in dire need of being updated, I dont think its been improved since it first opened in the 1950's. Many of the exhibits look old and tired.
Pointless new entrance area.
The diorama was cool, but didnt really explain much.
The actual bomb is quite a lot smaller than I seem to recall. I always thought it was as big as a small plane.
A sea of schoolkids. They mostly were quiet, but the big menace was a teacher making kids pose and look sad whilst he took photos, presumably for the school paper.
He was rearranging their uniform and telling them how to pose and what expressions to have on their faces, in front of big photos of naked burnt corpses.
The peace park, is basically a big puddle today.
The childrens monument. One thing I learnt, is that as many as a quarter of the people killed were Korean slaves. Hiroshima had been at least partially evacuated due to ongoing bombing of the conventional kind. Left behind were soldiers, and workers in factories, many of whom were Korean.
Presumably, many comfort women as well. Scandal reignited.
I got to ring the bell.
Nearby is the only building that remained standing, or so the legend goes. I think the real story is they demolished a lot of stuff really quickly, but left this place as a symbolic shell.
Place looks like a bomb hit it.
Nearby is the reconstructed Hiroshima castle. This isnt it. I assumed this is the entry, but its not. The entry is around the corner and along a muddy path.
Instead, this is some kind of shrine where foreigners wandering around are told to leave.
The castle. Parts of it look like its made out of old pallets.
Inside, and its tourist shops to buy a t-shirt. Actually the upper levels are a kinds of museum, mainly swords. Strangely, includes a sword made in 1980.
They have guards everywhere enforcing the no photo rule.
The view was not bad, even though its rainy.
Hiroshima like all Japanese cities has some kind of tower no one uses anymore.
And then because last night was curry and chocolate coated chips night, I opted for a healthy lunch from the fantastic Andersens bakery. The serving of minestrone was small, but delicious, but the real highlight was the two kinds of bread, both genuinely fresh out of the oven.